“Trust but verify.”
“Exactly. It seems strange that the feds would let their target—whoever he is—mow down their source’s family and friends.”
“Anything to make the case and earn that promotion,” Montgomery said cynically.
“He tried to run me down, you know,” I said, “so you can put out an APB on his car now. Assault with a deadly weapon.” I described the Mustang and gave him its license plate.
“Tried to run you down?” Montgomery’s face darkened. “Are you hurt?”
“A bruise on my thigh.” I didn’t mention that it was the size of a dinner plate and throbbed like the dickens. “All in all, it hurt less than getting tased.”
“Fane tased you, too?” Real anger sounded in his voice, and it made me feel good to know he was concerned.
Shaking my head, I said, “Gigi.” I told him about our stakeout but didn’t feel compelled to correct his assumption that Kungfu was a run-of-the-mill runaway case. I’d clue him in later, if need be.
“Gigi should come with a warning label,” he said. “Are you going to finish those pancakes?”
When I shook my head, he pulled the plate toward him with his fork and tucked into them. A family of tourists behind us debated the relative merits of visiting the Cave of the Winds or the Pioneer Museum that day, and a clutch of Colorado College students on our left moaned about a professor’s grading policies. I sipped my Pepsi and watched with a half-smile as Montgomery inhaled the pancakes.
He looked up and caught me watching him. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, embarrassed that I found the sight of a handsome man shoveling syrup-soaked pancakes into his mouth strangely appealing. I refused to admit that it was this handsome man, and not any generic pancake wolfer, that set my pulses thrumming. It was homey, even though we were at a restaurant. Somehow intimate, too, since they were my pancakes. Geez, I was losing it.
“Anything new on Bobrova?” I asked. “Is she conscious?”
Montgomery shook his head. “No, but she’s doing better, according to the docs; they’re more optimistic. Our background check on her has turned up something interesting, though.”
“What?” I watched impatiently as he swabbed up syrup with the last bite of pancake.
“Seems her family has quite the history in Russia.”
“Heirs to the throne history? Members of Stalin death squads history?”
“More like the latter. They controlled a crime empire in the 1970s and ’80s.”
I did some quick math. “That’s about when Bobrova came to the States.”
“Nineteen eighty-two. Their influence has diminished apparently in recent years—the old guard dying off and the younger generation wanting to go straight, maybe—but they were into everything from extortion and protection rackets to prostitution and murder-for-hire in the good old days.”
I chewed at my lower lip, trying to absorb the implications. Could Bobrova’s beating be connected to her family’s criminal activities? It didn’t seem likely. It would be a long way—in time and miles—for someone to come to get payback for some crime her family committed. “Do you think it plays into the attack?”
“Hard to see how,” Montgomery admitted. “On the other hand, we’re looking more closely into her finances and travels, to see if there’s any evidence that she’s carrying on the family tradition.”
“And?” Despite her irascible manner, I had trouble seeing Yuliya Bobrova as boss of a Colorado Springs outpost of the Russian Mafiya.
“Nothing so far.”
I reached for the check and slid my credit card onto the tray. “Those of us not taking the taxpayer’s dime have to get to work,” I said.
His hand closed on my wrist. “Let’s have a real date,” he said, his brown eyes fixed on mine. “Not a you’re-paying-me-back date or a friends-doing-lunch date, but a real date.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Okay,” I heard myself saying while my brain reminded me that Montgomery was an adrenaline junkie like Brad, my fighter pilot ex, and that he was four or five years younger than I was, and that I hadn’t had anything resembling a “relationship” in going on for three years, and—
“Don’t look so panicked,” Montgomery said, flicking my nose with his finger. “It’ll be fun.” He scraped back his chair, looking inordinately pleased with himself. “I’m working this weekend, so let’s make it Wednesday. Seven o’clock. Dinner and a movie. Or maybe CC’s got a home hockey game. I’ll make the arrangements.” He grinned down at me as we left the restaurant. “This is where you say, ‘I’m looking forward to it, Connor. Can’t wait!’”
“Don’t forget to check on Fane’s new undercover career,” I said, not wanting to admit that I was looking forward to going out with him. My undisciplined mind zoomed right past the meal and hockey to what happened when he dropped me back at my house. Absolutely nothing, I told myself sternly. Nada. Well, maybe one teeny, tiny kiss on the doorstep.
As if he’d read my mind, he leaned down and brushed my lips with his. He tasted like coffee and syrup. “Something to think about until Wednesday,” he said before turning and striding off toward police headquarters.
Damn the man. I scowled as I headed back to the rental. Once inside, warmed by the greenhouse effect of the sun streaming through the windows, I dialed my friend Jeanine, now a vice president with a major insurance company. She’d come a long way since we met as second lieutenants in the air force. I consciously tried not to compare my puny income with her mansion-buying-, cruise-vacationing-, art-collecting-sized paycheck; it would be too depressing. Even if her company hadn’t covered Stuart Fane, she could find out who did and what their investigation revealed.
“It’s Sunday,” she protested, when I told her what I needed.
“You’re at work,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I need my head examined. I’ll see what I can dig up.” With a put-upon sigh, she hung up.
* * *
It was forty-five minutes later and I had a sack of Gala apples, a bag of frozen blueberries, and a twelve-pack of Pepsi in my shopping basket at King Soopers when Jeanine called back. “That was fast,” I greeted her.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t that hard. He was with State Farm. Their report showed no sign of intoxication or involvement by another vehicle. Icy road conditions, a moment of inattention—maybe he swerved to avoid a dog—and pow! Dead on impact. State Farm paid the claim.”
“Any witnesses?”
Keyboard clicking told me she was scanning a document on her computer. “No. A homeowner heard the crash, though, and called the police. Ambulance and Detroit PD were on scene within ten minutes.”
Detroit. For some reason, I’d assumed the accident happened here, even though I knew the Fanes lived in Michigan.
“So, nothing unusual? Nothing that aroused suspicion?”
“Nada,” Jeanine said, a trace of impatience in her voice. “They don’t get much more cut-and-dried than this.”
I thanked her, told her I owed her, and hung up, ready to accept Stuart Fane’s death as an accident that had nothing to do with the current rash of explosions, shootings, and deaths that all coincided with Dmitri Fane’s disappearance.
24
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” I announced to Gigi and Kendall when I arrived at the office. They stared at me expectantly; well, Gigi stared at me while Kendall finished applying her eighteenth layer of mascara. “I found Dmitri Fane.”
“That’s great, Charlie,” Gigi enthused.
Kendall’s mouth parted with anticipation, and her eyes brightened. Frankly, I didn’t know how she could hold the lids open with all that mascara gooped on her lashes. The wildebeest-coconut smell wafted off her, and I stifled a rude comment. Too bad Domenica-Carol hadn’t given her an unscented appliance of some kind.
“Then I lost him again,” I said before Kendall could comment. “He pulled a gun on me, ran me down, and took off.”
“Oh, C
harlie!” Gigi said, concern on her face.
“What did you do to him?” Kendall asked.
“Silly me,” I said caustically. “I offered to help him make his case with the police so people would stop shooting at his family members.”
“Well, of course if you tried to get him arrested,” Kendall said in a voice that indicated she thought he was justified in driving over me.
“I didn’t—” I cut myself off. I was not going to explain myself to a fourteen-year-old. “What did you hear at practice yesterday?” I asked. “Are the skaters speculating about Dara and Dmitri?”
“Well, duh,” Kendall said. “Trevor and Angel are skating around like they’ve already got the national championship sewn up, and Trevor’s saying that Dmitri took off because he couldn’t handle the pressure. As if!”
“What else?”
“Well, they’re taking up a collection for flowers for Coach Bobrova. I said we’d put in ten dollars, Mom,” she told Gigi.
Gigi merely nodded, but I ground my teeth, knowing money was tight for them. “That’s it?”
“Pretty much,” she said.
I sipped my Pepsi, thinking about what I needed to do today. Another visit with Sally Peterson was in order, to check on Dara’s well-being—I was more worried about her since Irena and I had been shot at—and report on finding Dmitri. Sally Peterson was paying me, after all. I also wanted to swing by the hospital and check on Bobrova for myself, even though Montgomery had said she wasn’t conscious yet. Maybe she woke up overnight. Another run at the catering company might also yield some clues; it hadn’t escaped my attention that both Dmitri and Boyce had worked for Czarina Catering and both, it seemed, were crooks: Fane stole credit cards, and Edgerton dispensed illegal chemical substances. Maybe that was more than coincidence.
Gigi was filling me in with her tasks for the day—a couple of employee background checks for Brian Yukawa, owner of Buff Burgers, site of Gigi’s first undercover assignment and erstwhile home of Bernie, the morose bison head hanging over her desk—when the door opened, letting in a gust of January cold. Irena Fane walked in, bundled in a hip-length red coat that set off her dark hair and pale skin. I stared at her, Pepsi can halfway to my mouth.
“Dmitri said you will be my bodyguard,” she announced simply.
No apology for running out on me Saturday, no explanation for the hail of bullets, no “glad to see you’re all right.” I turned a growl into a cough as I tossed my can toward the trash.
“Oh, and I need my cell phone back.” She held out a gloved hand.
“Darn,” I said with spurious apology. “I left it at home.” I’d ransacked the phone for texts and phone numbers yesterday. All the texts and voice mails had been deleted, but I’d found a couple of numbers under RECENT CALLS that I intended to check out. “I didn’t know I’d be seeing you today. Where did you disappear to?”
“Would you like some coffee?” Gigi offered.
For the first time, I noticed a new coffeemaker on top of the file cabinet. I sighed inwardly, wondering how long this one would last.
“Thank you,” Irena said. She shook hands with Gigi. “I am Irena Fane.”
“Gigi Goldman,” I finished the introductions as Gigi rose to fill a star-decorated mug. “My p-partner.” I still stumbled over the P-word on occasion. A brilliant idea hit me. “She’ll be your bodyguard.”
Gigi swiveled toward me, astonished, sloshing coffee over the mug’s lip.
“You’re Dmitri’s mother?” Kendall asked.
“Yes.” Irena smiled, although her jaw remained tight with tension.
“I think he’s the best pair skater ever,” Kendall gushed.
That earned a more natural smile. “Me, too.”
“So, where did you run off—go Saturday? The police wanted to talk to you.”
“I was scared,” Irena said, giving a theatrical shiver. “You’re probably used to getting shot at—”
Oh, yeah, it happened every day. A PI’s life is one long shootout.
“—but it terrified me. I spent most of the afternoon and evening in the mall—I felt safer surrounded by people—and then called Dmitri from a pay phone. He said he’d met with you and that you would keep me safe until this blows over.” She offered a tentative smile.
“You poor thing,” Gigi said, pulling forward a chair for the woman to sit on. “Of course we’ll take care of you.” She gave me a meaningful look, urging me to reassure Irena.
I wasn’t falling for it. Irena’s story left several hours unaccounted for: Where had she been between mall closing time and eleven thirty or so when she got hold of Dmitri? “How did you get here today?” I asked.
“Dmitri loaned me his car. He said he would borrow one from a friend.”
I looked out the front window; sure enough, the Mustang sat in the lot beside Gigi’s yellow Hummer, not even a dent on the fender where he’d hit me. Clever, I thought. Dmitri obviously realized the police might now be searching for his car, so he’d foisted it on his mom. “He ran me down Saturday night, you know.”
“He was sorry for that,” Irena said after a tiny pause. “He thought you might be working for the men who are pursuing him, but then he realized his mistake. He asked me to apologize for him.”
Hm. Her face was guileless, her tone appropriately apologetic, but something seemed off.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was working with the feds?”
Irena played with the top toggle on her coat. “It’s hot in here. Is there somewhere I can hang this?”
I indicated the coat rack by the door, and she shrugged out of her coat, revealing a terra-cotta sweater over black leggings that made her look tiny and fragile.
“The feds?” I prompted when she returned to her chair.
“Oh. Well, Dmitri told me that was confidential. He was very upset with me for telling you as much as I did.”
“Charlie, can I speak with you a moment? In private?” Gigi asked, giving me another of those meaningful looks.
“Sure.” Since our choices for privacy were the tiny bathroom or the sidewalk in front of the office, I headed for the great outdoors.
“I don’t know anything about being a bodyguard!” Gigi wailed as soon as the door closed behind us. Traffic hissed by on Academy Boulevard, and clouds scudded the sky, hinting at the snow forecasters had predicted for this afternoon.
“There’s nothing to it in a case like this,” I reassured her. “The easiest thing to do is take the bodyguardee to a place no one expects them to be and sit on them.”
“Sit on them?”
“Babysit her,” I said impatiently. “Make sure she doesn’t make any phone calls or open the door to strangers. You can scare her a little by closing the curtains and telling her not to make a target of herself in front of the windows.”
Gigi gnawed her lower lip doubtfully. “Should I take her to a hotel?”
“Only if she springs for it,” I said. “I was thinking your house might be a good place. No one would think to look for her there.”
“Couldn’t you—”
“Negatory.” I shook my head firmly. “I’ve got too many leads to follow up on today. It could be dangerous for her to trail around after me.”
“Why can’t we recommend she go to a hotel and stay put?” Gigi asked.
“You’ve heard the saying ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”
Her blue eyes widened. “Is Irena our enemy? She seems so nice.”
“Let’s just say I’m not convinced she’s a friend.” Her disappearance after the shooting and her reappearance now seemed a bit hinky to me. As did her seeming acceptance of Dmitri’s criminal proclivities. Plus, it struck me that as Yuliya Bobrova’s sister, she came from the same crime-loving background that Bobrova did, so maybe Dmitri was genetically programmed to embrace a life of crime. Was there such a thing as a criminal gene? “She’s our best chance of finding Dmitri again; clearly, they’re still in touch. I’ve got her cell phone.
If you keep her cooped up at your place and she uses your phone to call Dmitri, we’ll have a record of the number and can maybe track him through that.”
“If it’s not a cell,” Gigi pointed out.
I had to admit that the proliferation of cell phones had complicated the PI’s life in many ways. “True.” I caught a glimpse of Irena peering out the window at us. I waved in a friendly way, and she withdrew. “Load her into your Hummer and leave Dmitri’s car here,” I suggested. “That way, she’ll have to rely on you for transportation.”
“That’s smart,” Gigi said. I reached a hand to open the door, but she stopped me. “If I’m going to be a bodyguard, I should probably get my gun out of the safe, don’t you think?”
Hell, no! Only if we wanted Irena to be more at risk from her bodyguard than from Dmitri’s enemies. The hint of eagerness in Gigi’s voice reminded me of the day she’d first shown up in the office, waving the gun around, convinced it was a PI’s most necessary accessory. She’d been disappointed to realize I didn’t take mine out of the safe more than three or four times a year. “How about the Taser?” I suggested. “That has plenty of stopping power.”
Gigi looked stricken. “I’m so, so sorry—”
“Forget it,” I said magnanimously, mindful of Dan’s words. “Accidents happen.”
* * *
Having explained the plan to Irena, gotten her car keys off her for good measure, and seen the two women and Kendall off in the Hummer, I heaved a sigh of relief and called Sally Peterson, who said she could give me fifteen minutes between classes if I came to her office. Accordingly, I set off south on Academy Boulevard and made the right on Austin Bluffs that would take me to the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. I was at her office within twenty minutes.
“Come,” she called when I knocked on the half-open door.
She stood over her desk, reading glasses slipping down her nose, stuffing a pile of papers into a soft-sided briefcase. Other than a cleared semicircle on her desk, every square inch in the place was devoted to posters and photos of Dara. Dara with Dmitri, Dara with some pre-Dmitri partner, Dara with trophies, Dara with sports commentators. Strangely enough, there didn’t seem to be any photos of Dara with Sally or Dara in jeans relaxing or hiking or with a prom date. It was as if Dara had no identity apart from that as skating phenom. Whew.
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